We Still Cannot Forget What Happened That Day
by JoanyChan
Summary: Naruto. Sasuke. Sai. Sakura. Ino. Hinata. Six friends. A tragic accident. Now five are left. Each one is haunted with regrets and guilt that has broken their bond. But when Hinata returns as a ghost, will they be able to reconnect to send her to Heaven?
1. My Hallucination

**My Hallucination**

_In a forest filled with fragments of the midday sun, excited laughter rung. At first, it appeared as if the voices came from the large tree that dominated the forest clearing. But instead, it was from the six young children that raced around the tree's thick trunk._

"_Naruto! Wait up!"_

"_Haha! Sakura you're way too slow!"_

"_Don't worry Sai! I'll save you!"_

"_Hinata, throw your shuriken!"_

"_Hurry up Ino, or the evil ninjas will get you!"_

"_Eee! Sasuke! Save me!" _

_They fell down in exhaustion in a circle, staring up at the mosaic of tree leaves and blue sky with their hands held together. _

_This was what they would always be like: together._

* * *

><p><em>A thin trail of blood stained on sharp rocks, snaking down the small ravine.<em>

_A small shoe floated in the water, abandoned._

_A little girl lied by the side. She was not breathing._

_Terrified screams of five different voices echoed in the background._

"_Hinata!"_

"_Hinata!"_

* * *

><p><em>I'm hallucinating. This heat is making me crazy.<em>

Tiny beads of sweat roll down his forehead. His sky-blue eyes stare suspiciously and tiredly before him as he sits on his bed. Surrounding him is a mess of last week's laundry flung carelessly on the floor and pieces of simple, cheap wooden furniture that are still visible.

"Naruto…you should really clean this place up…" A soft voice approaches from the small kitchen by the doorway of the apartment. It belongs to a rather petite teenage girl with jet black hair that reaches her mid-back and bangs that frame cloud-lavender eyes. She carries a bowl of soup noodles.

_Don't talk to it. It'll just encourage my insanity. _

The heat and confusion buzzes in his ears.

"Naruto?"

"Wh-Ack! What the hell?" The girl's inquiring face is close to his now—to close. He falls back, smacking his head against the wall. "Ow!"

"Oh! Are-are you okay?" She leans over and touches the back of his blonde hair.

_What the hell? I can feel her touch…ghosts aren't solid…_

"Naruto?"

_I give up._

"What? What?"

"You're face is really red."

He brushes her arm away. She—no it—is right, his face is overheating. Great. Now he feels dizzy.

"I'll go get a cold towel to cool you down…" She gently replies with levity. When she returns, she places the towel on his forehead.

She's too close and it doesn't help cool him down.

_I'm so stupid. Getting all worked up over a hallucination."_

"I'm fine, I can do it myself."

She let's go and he holds the towel with his own hand as she sits across from him on the mattress. Now the heat is a bit better. He looks away at her as he asks:

"So…are you really Hinata?"

He allows himself to look back at her. She is patting herself all over her body, as if doing some sort of check-up. Then she gives him a small smile and replies, "Yep."

_That's impossible. _

"Then…where were you all these years?"

She places a finger on her lips and ponders this for a moment. "Eto…I died." She replies happily, "And now I'm back!"

"Why? Don't ghosts go to Heaven? Why are you here?"

_Why me?_

She shrugs in the same, quiet, yet happy-go-lucky manner. "I dunno." After a bit a silence, she shyly asks, "Are you going to try to ramen?"

He sighs, deciding to play along with this sick game his mind is playing on him. He takes the chopsticks and takes a slurp. His blue eyes widen.

"Is…is it okay?"

It tasted the same as she last made it. Ten years ago.

He looks at the ghost—his hallucination incredulously. Dumbfounded, he replies:

"It's…it's great. Hinata."

_I really am crazy._

* * *

><p><strong>I can't take full credit for this idea because this concept was inspired by a spring anime that came out this year called Ano Hi Mita Hana no Namae o Bokutachi wa Mada Shiranai. And yes, I did actually memorize that title. If you have seen it (wasn't it so good!) then you'll probably see the resemblance right away. If you haven't, then you really should…<strong>

**But anyway, after finishing the anime, I was so hyped up that I really wanted to write something about it. But I thought trying to do a fanfic about AnoHana directly would just be useless because the anime was just so great I wouldn't have wanted anything else changed. **

**So I turned to Naruto. This also happens to be my first fanfic in Naruto…**

**I do plan on deviating from the plot of the AnoHana, so please stick around!**

**Thanks for reading!**


	2. Almost Invisible

**Almost-Invisible**

"_Naruto…I'm hungry." A blonde girl whined in the back._

_The six friends walked together down the neighborhood, somewhat dirtied by an afternoon's worth of playing. _

_The boy with messy blonde hair, who appeared to be leading the way, scoffed. "Well, my mom's a bad cook, so don't count on getting any good snacks."_

"_We…we can make cookies when we get there. Together." The petite, black-haired girl pats her hungry friend in reassurance. She gives a gentle smile._

"_Yeah. Stop complaining.!" The spiky, black haired boy said in an irritated tone until he bumped into the boy in the front. "What was that for?" He angrily rubs his nose._

_The six of them looked up and found themselves speechless. _

_The blonde girl gasped and hid behind the tallest of the boys—the one with matching dark eyes and spiky hair. _

"_Wh-what happened here?" The leading boy's blue eyes widen and his legs tremble._

_Before them was no longer the house they were familiar with, but an empty lot filled with ashes and broken pieces of what remained. Yellow tape blocked the area off. The red flashing of the ambulance and police surrounded them. Four men carry stretchers past them._

_They notice that there were lumps on the stretchers, covered with a cloth as if something terrible was underneath. _

"_Naruto…don't" The small girl with cloud-eyes and black hair tried to hold her friend back, but he broke away._

"_Mom! Dad!" He screamed at the top of his lungs. He fought through the large men and flung the clothes aside, reassuring his nightmare._

_His friends look away as the boy screamed and collapsed._

* * *

><p>A sweet, light ring chime fills the small apartment as Hinata gently taps a silver tuning fork against a wooden surface. She sits with her legs tucked beneath her on a pillow, before the only area Naruto has kept neat. In front of her are two nicely framed pictures: one of a woman with an energetic grin matching red hair, the other of a man resembling an older version of Naruto.<p>

She claps her hand together, closes her eyes, and bows her head slightly in respect. Then, opening her light-purple eyes, she smiles softly.

"Ne…Naruto?" She spins around and crosses her legs.

"What?" He answers distractedly, keeping his eyes glued on the screen as his fingers are kept busy with a video game controller.

"Didn't you have school today?" She looks at the calendar noticing that it is a Monday.

The cheery theme song of the game drops into a sad tune as the screen glares GAME OVER. Naruto drops his controller, still not bothering to return her glance as he replies:

"Yeah. I don't go anymore."

"Why?"

"I haven't gone in years."

"B-but…you should go!" She persisted and started speaking faster, "What about Ino? Sakura? Sai? Sasuke—

"Hinata. We…we aren't—

Then she smiles excitedly at him with bright eyes, "We should meet them! Let's go see them!"

He looks at her expression and sighs. "Fine. We can go out. But I'm still not going to school."

She nods eagerly.

But when they head towards the door and Hinata stands on her tip-toes, she looks back to find Naruto hesitantly hanging by the sink of the kitchen. She goes ahead and twists the knob to open the door anyway.

"Let's go Naruto!"

He looks away from glow of the evening sky that streams in, as if he is allergic to the outside light. Hinata notices this and reaches out for his hand. Her touch, as if electric, makes him jump and bit.

"Come on!" She smiles and gently pulls him out the room. Then she let's go and runs off down the sidewalk, her head turning to each side. She laughs and giggles in delight, soaking in her surroundings.

"Hey—hold on a sec! Wait!" He runs after her. "Hinata!"

Trying to reach for her sundress to hold her back, he loses his balance and falls on his face. When he looks to the side, he notices several groups of students in high school uniforms staring at him.

"That's him, isn't it?"

"That's right. He doesn't go to school anymore."

"What a loner."

"He was talking to himself."

"What a freak."

He hears their giggles. Their whispers behind hands. Their faces that tell him that he is an outsider. He remembers why he stopped trying to be a part of them years ago.

_That's right. Laugh. See if I give a damn._

He stays down on the ground, waiting for them to leave and fuming in his own thoughts.

"Uzumaki?"

He stands back up, brushes himself off, and finds himself standing face to face with another student. But this one stands out from the others. His blue eyes widen in surprise.

"In—I mean, Yamanaka!"

She is different. Much different from the girl ten years ago. Her short, platinum blonde hair is now much longer, tied into a meticulous braid. She is much taller. And most noticeably, her thin frame has given way to slight curves.

She looks at him with a raised eyebrow.

"What are you doing?"

"I was…uh, getting some fresh air!" He blurts out clumsily, scratching his head awkwardly.

After all, it has been years since he has really talked to anyone.

She puts a hand on her hip and gives him this look that tells him she does not buy it. "Well, maybe you should try coming to classes sometime. It's been years…"

"Ino!"

Naruto finds himself pushed slightly back by Hinata, who rushes over at the sound of her old friend's voice. Now, wedged between the two, Hinata excitedly greets her.

"Ino! You've grown so tall! Is that your uniform? You look so pretty in it! And you're hair! Wah…." Her eyes shine in happiness as she talks.

But Ino doesn't seem to notice. Instead, she flips back her hair and continues to speak.

"…since you've showed up. Hey, are you listening?" She notices Naruto's confused face, mistaking it for a blank expression.

_What the hell?_

"Hey…Yamanaka. You…you can't see her?"

Hinata slowly stops making hand gestures and babbling. Her hands fall to her side as she realizes what is wrong.

"What are you talking about Uzumaki? See who?"

He sees Hinata's face and something strikes his chest. That smile that got him all worked up was gone. The energy too. Her lower lip was trembling. He knew that look all too well.

Suddenly, he felt angry.

_Why can't she see her? Weren't you her friend too?_

"Don't screw around Yamanaka. You know what I'm talking about—

"Um. No. I don't." She took a step back from him and started to turn away a bit. "Uh…look. I'll…catch you later, okay?" Breaking into a quick stride, she walks towards a group of girls waving towards her. She doesn't look back.

It's as if she didn't want anyone to know that she was just talking to him—a freak.

Naruto realizes this and snorts slightly at himself. Laughing at his own stupidity.

_Right. This isn't the past anymore._

But something inside causes him to spontaneously shout out to her.

"Hinata's back! Well…not, back as in alive…but she's a ghost!"

He notices her pace break to a stop.

Then without a word, she walks off.

Frustrated at himself for having put Hinata in such a situation, he irritably starts, "See, we're not kids anymore. We're not fr—

She's not there.

There is nobody but him.

"Hinata?"

* * *

><p>In the quiet evening-turned-night, Hinata hums to herself. She tries to cheer herself up. After all, it's good enough that she can see her friends again.<p>

She just can't talk to all of them.

That's all.

That's okay.

With hands clasped together behind her back, she walks across town. Not much has changed.

Over there is the candy shop with the little old lady that they always got free samples from. Naruto liked gummy worms, Sakura liked azuki bean candy, Ino liked chocolate pretzels, Sasuke liked peppermint, Sai liked fruit drops…

And there is the playground they liked to play in sometimes—but only for the huge slide. One time, Naruto and Sasuke dared each other to climb upwards on it…

There is the street where they found the stray kitty. It scratched Ino, so she hated it. But Hinata thought it was adorable…

And…she stops.

That is her house.

She smiles, even though it feels a bit forced because she is a bit scared. Taking a deep breath, she swings open the gate and walks in through the open back door.

Now she wants to cry. Because her mom and dad and brother are right there, sitting at the dinner table as they always would at eight-o-clock. Mom's hair is a bit grayer and so is Dad's. Their shoulders sag a big more, like there's some sort of invisible weight over them. But other than that, they still look the same.

And her little sister, Hanabi. She's so tall now, maybe even taller than her. So pretty with her heart-shaped face that has lost chubbiness in the cheeks. She's all grown up.

"I'm home." She calls out.

She knows she can't be heard. But she just wanted to get that feeling again—the one of returning home from school or playing with her friends. For that moment, she closes her eyes and pretends that her mother returns her greeting with some yummy snacks, and her father asks her how her day was…

But that's all pretend.

She opens her eyes again and notices that there are four bowls of rice on the table. Even if there are only three people.

"Mom…you should stop doing this by now…" Her little sister starts. Her voice isn't as baby-ish. It's more serious. Maybe even a bit sad.

"Stop what?"

"It's been ten years. Hinata's gone. She…she's not coming back, Mom."

Her mother sets her chopstick down and looks lovingly towards the picture containing a small girl with short black hair styled in square bangs. She is staring shyly at the camera, with a slight blush in her cheeks that goes well with her purple yukata.

"Your sister's such an airhead that she probably doesn't realize that she's dead yet."

Oh no. A tear is trickling down her cheek. She tries smiling to fend off the feeling of sadness, but it's no use.

"I know Mom. I know I'm dead."

* * *

><p><strong>I hope I'm doing okay with this form of narration. I just realized that I'm not used to having so many characters in a passage. Hopefully the narration is not too confusing…<strong>

**Well, please review! I'd really like to know what you all think of this!**


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